Optimizing phpBB 2.0 for Search Engines, Page Rank, and Security

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Search Engines -- Getting your Forums Indexed

Example of URLs that will not be indexed...
http://forums.domain.com/index.php?sid=c80e688fbf4ec5347f170b3e4r2067b7
http://forums.domain.com/viewtopic.php?t=1689&sid=c80e688fbf4ec5347f170b3e4r2067b7

Example of URLs that will be indexed...
http://forums.domain.com/index.php
http://forums.domain.com/viewtopic.php?t=1689

*Note that Session IDs are normally stored in cookies; otherwise they are transferred via the URL. For Session IDs to be visibly present in the URL, cookies have to be turned off under your browser's settings.

Benefits: This method does not remove Session IDs from non-logged in users (guests); allowing guests to posts.

Downside:
(1) While the 'User-Agent' strings of the major Search Engine bots are known, some lesser-known bots will be missed.
(2) The 'User-Agent' string of a bot can change from time to time; an updated list must be kept.

SELECT username, FROM_UNIXTIME(user_lastvisit), FROM_UNIXTIME(user_regdate), user_website FROM phpbb_users WHERE user_id > 2 AND user_posts = 0 AND BIN(user_website) IS NOT NULL ORDER BY user_lastvisit;

DELETE FROM phpbb_users WHERE user_id > 2 AND user_posts = 0 AND BIN(user_website) IS NOT NULL;